Go to salary.com and select any major city in the US and see what a senior software engineer makes. Anecdotally, I spent my entire career between 1996- 2020 wo

Go to salary.com and select any major city in the US and see what a senior software engineer makes. Anecdotally, I spent my entire career between 1996- 2020 working local jobs in Atlanta. Which is not exactly a tech hub. Look at the compensation of your standard non tech well known companies that are either based in Atlanta or have a large presence like Delta, Home Depot, Coke, GE (GE Transportation), State Farm. I’ve never studied a line of leetcode nor have I had a GitHub portfolio my entire career until 2021.